Maddalena Taras

ASSESSMENT – SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE – SOME THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS

ABSTRACT:  This paper wishes to clarify the definitions of the central terms relating to assessment. It argues that all assessment begins with summative assessment (which is a judgement) and that formative assessment is in fact summative assessment plus feedback which is used by the learner.

Using Assessment for Learning and Learning from Assessment

Innovation in assessment is no longer an option in higher education in Britain if we examine the aims and the claims that are being made. From the Dearing Report to our module guides, we claim to wish to support independent and life-long learning, put the students at the heart of the learning process and to help students take responsibility for their own learning. This cannot be done without including students in mainstream summative assessment and without reconciling the contradictions that currently contribute to impeding the students this access. This article will look briefly at the aims of higher education, provide an overview of current thinking on student learning and formative assessment as a framework for offering one possible practical solution to the problem. This possible solution is Tarass (2001) version of student self-assessment which works within the theoretical framework of Sadlers (1989) theory of formative assessment and of what we know about student learning.

The Use of Tutor Feedback and Student Self-assessment in Summative Assessment Tasks: Towards transparency for students and for tutors

This paper examines the case for a variation of student self-assessment which has been used across a wide range of subject areas and different types of assessment in higher education in Britain. It argues that three key features will allow students increased access to assessment procedures and protocols and that consequently, they will be better placed to carry out self-assessment from an informed position. These three features are first, to use summative, graded work for self-assessment; second, to receive tutor feedback in order to help them identify and understand their errors prior to self-assessment; and third, it is proposed that students should receive their grade or mark only after they have completed the formative, learning aspect of the self-assessment exercise. It is argued that this process will go some way towards giving students real access to power sharing in assessment.

Student self-assessment: processes and consequences

Empirical research signals that self-assessment is an important factor supporting and engaging students with learning. Despite this, there has been no explicit comparison or evaluation of recent models used across educational sectors or within them. To the uninitiated, self-assessment often appears as an amorphous, unique process. This paper evaluates four basic models used in higher education to permit tutors to compare the different processes, timing and the degree of involvement of learners and tutors (weak and strong models) and discusses how each model could develop expertise in different contexts. It also summarises the main issues which have fuelled debate over half a century. This evaluation will benefit the educational community by providing a concise overview of self-assessment processes thus providing an expedient means of making an informed choice and encourage the take-up by practitioners.

Summative assessment: the missing link for formative assessment

Assessment for learning is increasingly part of accepted orthodoxy, with massive government funding in England, is central to national assessment in Wales, and an export to the USA. Black et al.s Assessment for learning: Putting it into practice (2003), the ‘bible’ of assessment for learning, is set reading for trainee teachers across the UK, and this text is increasingly a staple diet for all interested in assessment for learning. As such it has an important impact on all involved in the teaching and learning process. Despite this, there has been little discussion of either the paradigm or the definitions which inform it. This article examines the definitions of formative assessment and the theoretical premises of assessment for learning exemplified here and how they impact on the practices described. It finds a lack of alignment and coherence in the rationale of the theory, and contradictions which ensue in the practice. One solution is a paradigm shift basing definitions of formative and summative assessment on processes of assessment and not on functions. Functions remain as a basic epistemological premise of assessment.

Do unto others or not: equity in feedback for undergraduates

This article argues that the mechanisms and research culture that support university academics when writing articles for publication in an iterative feedback cycle, and which are within the tenets of good pedagogic principles of formative assessment and feedback (Sadler, 1989), are often missing to support undergraduate students in their learning. The reasons for this are mainly historical. Generally, this process is only available in universities at postgraduate level, as undergraduates tend not to be included in this type of learning culture. This is exacerbated because of the exclusion of undergraduates from assessment processes, which would help them to understand and assimilate the feedback on their work. Data collected from validated documentation of undergraduate programmes at a new English university were used to attempt to quantify possible feedback available to students and their access to assessment.

Assessment for learning: understanding theory to improve practice

The assessment for learning framework in education has become big business: huge quantities of time, money and energy have been invested in England, Wales and more recently the USA. This article shows that the assessment for learning theory is inefficient and often contradictory. Black and Wiliams earlier work provides much of the theoretical rationale for this paradigm and evaluating three papers will serve to illustrate how existing anomalies arose. Their work has been little challenged, partly because of their seniority and position, and the respect accorded to them in the academic community, and also because of the undoubted contribution which their work has made to providing an ethical and practical working philosophy of institutional learning which prioritises formative assessment and, therefore, learning over assessing. However, respect for their achievements also includes building on and improving their work.

Issues of power and equity in two models of self-assessment

The two models of self-assessment examined in this paper serve different functions and provide different skills and points of focus for both learners and tutors. The standard model focuses students on their own resources and knowledge in an essentially formative assessment context. Taras’ model focuses on students’ understanding, using the tutors assessment skills in both a formative and summative assessment context, with the summative context taking priority. This paper presents these differences and relates them to two important issues in educational assessment—the tensions between formative and summative assessment, and the issue of the locus of power in assessment. It concludes that while both models provide necessary skills for students, the standard model is not as supportive of an integrative model of formative and summative assessment, and not as supportive of moving the locus of power from the tutor to the students.

Perceptions and realities in the functions and processes of assessment

Assessment is acknowledged as a central motivator for learning, as being perhaps the most difficult and arduous task for tutors, and also, a defining component of institutional quality, curriculum, courses and degrees. Therefore, given this, surely our understanding of terms, processes and their relationships, which reveal our knowledge of theories, practices and research, would be expected to be coherent and critically defensible. Yet, this study supports other literature that demonstrates that this is not the case. What to do about resolving theoretical and practical issues in assessment is perhaps a key challenge for education and educationalists. One problem is that it is often perceived as being the realm of specialists and for specialist journals, when the reality is that understanding assessment is central to everyone in education.

Machinations of assessment: metaphors, myths and realities

This paper examines the metaphors of assessment for learning in order to reveal the hidden agenda of beliefs which language cloaks. It is argued that the power of metaphor in discourse can both create and impede new realities. This hidden agenda is further exacerbated because of two metaphoric frameworks in the English language: the conduit metaphor, and argument as war, where lack of agreement with the dominant discourse could be seen as ignorance and an act of aggression. The metaphoric associations linked to assessment for learning are so powerful that it has been difficult to challenge its shortfalls and theoretical incompleteness. By looking at the metaphors at the heart of the theory as exemplified in some of the work of Black and Wiliam it is possible to reveal some of the inconsistencies and the contradictions within their theoretical framework.